BEN HARVEY: Mrs Harvey is my saving Grace in the torture of long-haul travel

I have just got back from a whirlwind visit to Greenland.

It was a successful trip in that I got the story I was there to get, plus I saw an iceberg and wasn’t eaten by a hungry polar bear or bashed up by an angry Viking.

That news story from Greenland will come to you when I get off my arse and write it but, for now, I am going to talk about the journey itself.

If there is a more inconvenient place on earth to get to from Perth, I can’t find it. If Greenland was any further away it would be closer.

The flight there was so long I managed to get drunk and sober up three times.

My destination was a tiny town on this mysterious country’s south coast. Qaqortoq is more fun to say (it’s pronounced kwuck-a-tock) than it is to fly to.

The journey involved stops in Qatar’s Doha, Denmark’s Copenhagen, Iceland’s Reykjavik and Greenland’s capital, Nuuk (pronounced, also pleasingly, as nyook).

The 50 hours I spent in the country required about 80 hours of travel.

I think we can all agree, dear readers, that hero, whilst a strong word, isn’t out of place here.

It was a trip made more challenging by my own befuddlement. I used to be an efficient traveller but over the past few years I have lost my match fitness because I am usually flying with my better half Grace.

I am so confident in her stewardship that I switch off and don’t take notice of anything except what’s on the screen in front of me and where my next beer is coming from.

From the moment we get to the airport, everything goes like clockwork.

Watching her go through security and passport control is a lesson in efficiency of movement.

She is able to time her run to a second, such that by the time she is required to produce something she has the relevant zip on the relevant pocket in the relevant bag halfway down.

I, on the other hand, can never find anything, so end up sweating like a drug runner on an episode of Border Security: Australia’s Front Line as I dig through the deepest recesses of my carry-on to find my passport, then my boarding pass and then my phone when I realise Grace has already checked us in and added the pass to my Apple Wallet.

When we get on the plane, I am not allowed to touch anything until the area around us has been doused in antiseptic.

By the time she is done not one living microbe is alive within 10 feet of us. It’s as sterile as a surgical ward, which is fitting because Grace travels with enough emergency medication to resuscitate every passenger on an A380.

Hawkeye went through the Korean War with less kit than she takes on a four-hour flight to Sydney. I don’t know where she puts it all; her handbag is like Dr Who’s Tardis.

Besides organisation, Grace’s other travelling attribute is her ability to stay in a good mood regardless of how far back in economy class we’re perched.

That balances out my usually less-than-sunny disposition.

Whereas she will happily chat with those around her, I greet them with a look that makes it clear that if the social contract should be broken by, say, the hogging of the communal armrest or the playing of music at a volume that allows me to hear it from their headphones, then I will lose the plot like Hitler in that bunker scene.

The goal of maximising efficiency continues at the end of the flight.

When we land, Grace watches the seat belt symbol like a sprinter waiting for the starting gun.

As soon as she is able to get out of her seat, she does, retrieving her carry-on luggage (which she methodically re-packed on the descent) and shimmying as close to the exit door as she can.

Pity the disorganised fool who holds her up by taking too long to get their case out of the overhead compartment or searching for their AirPods in the pouch in the back of the seat in front of them.

And, yes, that disorganised fool is usually me. She never says anything but doesn’t need to because in such moments the silent judgment is palpable.

Once she’s out of the plane, she’s down the aerobridge like Gout Gout and when on the arrivals concourse will weave her way through the people between her and the luggage collection point.

She’ll dart around the slow walkers and slipstream the faster ones until she gets to the conveyor belt, where she stands centimetres from the luggage shoot.

One day I am going to see her crawl in there and wrestle with the baggage handlers.

Getting through five security and passport checks on the way to Greenland (and five on the way back) without her tested me.

If you happened to be at an airport last week and saw a gormless ginger bloke shuffling aimlessly and mouthing the words “I wish Grace was here”, that was me.